How do you play The Sims?

@starrling33 Thank you for sharing! Cathartic is definitely a really good way to describe playing ts4

I play in a variety of ways. In one save, I unleash my inner serial killer and definitely play god. In another save, I complete challenges on difficult level. In a few saves, I just build worlds in different ways and populate them with sims I never have the time to play.

In my favorite save, I put my simself and populated the world with a mix of interesting normal characters and complete weirdos. My simself adopted 23 stray dogs, got abducted by aliens 4 times, had 17 children, ran a restaurant, fell in love with a vampire whose day job was gardening, and then cloned myself 12 times so I could fall in love with all the other wacky characters without cheating on my one true love, the vampire formerly known as Howly Bloodlust (He wears a top hat and I think it's really hot. Been trying to get my irl bf to wear one)

My favorite part about the sims is that it's NOT online. There is no one else playing with you, making snide comments about how you play. You play by yourself for yourself, judgement free. EA is considering making TS5 online and to me, that would undermine the entire reason why I play. They want to bring in competition, but I'd rather have collaboration. I love the forums and the gallery. Everyone is so sweet. There are a few bad eggs here and there, but for the most part, the sims community is very supportive. After all, where else can you be a rocket scientist, actor, professional guitar player, and have 100 children? The game has given people the ability to live out their dreams without someone looking over their shoulder saying that's not cool or that's ugly. It makes me a little scared for the future direction of the sims' franchise, but if the community stays supportive and kind, it'll all be good.

I think the sims is the ultimate sandbox game. It's something I've been looking for my whole life (I started playing last year). I've always wanted to build castles and restaurants and run a vet clinic or live on a farm with a dozen dogs. It really lets me unleash my inner creativity, my inner storyteller, and my inner weirdo that I don't let a whole lot of people see. I use TS4 as an outlet for all of this and I never share it with anyone else in my life. It's just for me.

My favorite way of playing Sims is to create large families and let the Sims take the lead on character development, relationships, etc. I like free will and always randomize traits (and sometimes aspirations, unless they have a personality well-suited to a specific one). My favorite point in any Sims game is after 3-4 generations where there is a massive family expanded all over that particular universe, and I am really happy that Sims 4 story progression allows for non-active-household Sims to get on with their own lives and go in their own direction. In Sims 3, I was constantly having to progress other households to keep up with the family members (i.e., make couples get married, have children, etc.).

My current Legacy family is at Generation 4, and the Founder boasts like 16 great-grandchildren so far. They're totally taking over the neighborhood and I love it!

On a psychological level, this might be because my extended family isn't particularly close. Whoops.

I play with all the premade families and a few of my own making on a rotation. Family play is what I enjoy the most.

It's a combination of personal and impersonal. On a personal level I always like to create an extremely big and close knit family like I always wanted. And I stick with the same families for years with aging off that I rotate between. Their life stories intertwine in different ways. I sort have created this safe space for them but there cannot be a safe space without danger in my opinion. Which ts4 seriously lacks.

So on the other hand on a non personal level I always got this horror story/outbreak/zombie apocalypse storyline going on trying to bring on a feel of danger?
Thanks for sharing.

I am a micromanaging crazy person so I use mod to rid the entire game of premade up houses and sims and create everything from scratch on my own. Problem is that the game auto-generates stuff all the time and I loose my DAMN MIND.

Mostly I spend 10 hours building a house, 4 hours creating a family, 30 minutes playing with the family. :D

For me, it's a only a few, but very well developed characters who enjoy living in comfort and luxury and observe what happens around them.

My first sim ends as my primary one, whom I control 99% of the time. From that point, I complete aspirations, careers, explore the world and so on.AS for families, I do end up getting married, but as a user of certain mods, I'm not above pursuing companionship of other sims. AS for children, I never have my own biological ones. There are more than enough kids who need parents.

My main past time is wander around and help out families with their own kids :)

In short, a couple of power-leveled sims who achieve a lot and then spend time doing basically whatever.

My building ideas are:
Different shapes, themes, Underground, High Above the trees, Split Levels, Towers, Mansions, Castles, Tiny Cottages, Cabins, Teepees, Pyramids, Ancient Greek Homes, Tiny Caravans, Cantina, Starship Home, Celestrial House, Outdoor Domes, Military Barracks Home, Scientist Home,
Alien/Borg House, Alien Apartment, Gothic Vamp/Magical Homes, Elves Tree Cabin Home, Fairy Flower Tree Home, Treehouses.
(No mods).

My CAS ideas are:
Hybrids, Story, Family, Single, Pets, Historical, Futuristic, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, SciFi, Pop Culture, Gothic, Mythology, Supernatural, Opposites, Holiday Themes & Naughty Themes like the my Black Widow Bachlorette & the poor 5 guys that she marries, as well as my Science Guy befriending alot of Aliens so that he can be abducted & have an Alien baby. Lol.
(No mods).

I play it like I'm a reality tv show producer: give me DRAMA! No marriage is safe. I will clone you and have your wife fall in love with the doppelganger if that's what it takes for the fur to fly.

I give all my families really nice, colorful houses. I grew up as a military dependent (my father was a soldier) so we had a lot of small, plain houses/apartments with really strict decoration rules (nothing hanging on walls that will make holes, plain white walls that weren't allowed to be painted any other color, no lawn decor, etc) They were always structurally sound and well built, but very plain and boring. So I nearly always give my sims bright, colorful homes with lots of cozy decorations they can enjoy. I wish we had tree houses in the Sims 4! My sim kids would get them all the time.